Pokémon (TV series)
Pocket Monsters (better known as "Pokémon") is a Japanese animated series that currently has 15 seasons with over 700 episodes, 15 films, and a spin-off series. Though the TV series is ultimately based upon the games and draws heavily from them, many concepts which are only touched on the games are spun in a unique way, and expanded on. The TV series is now broadcasted in 74 different countries, many times being dubbed into other languages for different locales. In Japan, Pocket Monsters has been broadcast under its original title and under three subtitled titles, with the subtitled versions denoting a change in the setting matching the different versions of the video games, rather than being divided into distinct seasons. The show's central protagonist is Ash Ketchum, a ten-year-old aspiring pokémon master, who participates in competitions involving battles with creatures called pokémon in the fictional regions of Kanto, the Orange Islands, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova, and Kalos, and attends a school on Melemele Island in the Alola region which teaches classes about pokémon. Ash is usually joined by his electric mouse partner Pikachu, and a regularly changing line-up of human friends. These friends are usually pokémon trainers, such as Misty, Brock, Tracey Sketchit, May, Dawn, Iris, Cilan, Serena, Clemont, Lillie, Kiawe, Mallow, Lana, and Sophocles, though some of the friends Ash has adventures with, such as May's brother Max, and Clemont's sister Bonnie, are too young to raise and train pokémon of their own. Recurring antagonists of Ash and his friends throughout the show are the frequently comedic thieves from Team Rocket, made up of the humans Jessie and James, a talking Meowth, and later, a Wobbuffet. Ash also competes with a number of recurring rival Pokémon trainers in his journeys, including Gary Oak, Ritchie, Harrison, Morrison, Tyson, Paul, Nando, Conway, Barry, Tobias, Trip, Bianca, Stephan, Cameron, Virgil, Tierno, Trevor, Sawyer, Alain, Gladion and Hau. Plot Ash Ketchum has just become a pokémon trainer in the Kanto Region. Ash picked Pikachu because, after breaking his alarm clock, he was late for his appointment and all the conventional starter pokémon (Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle) were gone. Ash accidentally destroys a bike belonging to a girl named Misty, who starts to follow him to get her bike back, but soon becomes a close friend. Misty endeavors to be a great water pokémon trainer. Shortly thereafter, Ash battles Brock, the leader of the Pewter City gym. Ash initially loses to Brock's Onix, but wins the Boulder Badge in a rematch. Brock then turns over gym leader duties to his estranged father and accompanies Ash and Misty on their journey. Ash's Kanto journey culminates with him collecting the necessary eight badges to compete in the Indigo League Pokémon Tournament held annually on the Indigo Plateau in Viridian City. He ultimately loses in the quarter-finals to Richie, a new rival who happens to use many of the same Pokémon as Ash, including a Pikachu named "Sparky". After the Indigo League, Ash returns briefly to Pallet Town before setting out on a new journey to the Orange Islands where he will compete in the Orange League. Brock eventually parts company with Ash and Misty to pursue pokémon research with Professor Ivy. At this point a new character, Tracey Sketchit joins Ash. Ash collects four badges and competes against the Orange League champion, Drake, a very experienced trainer. The battle comes down to Pikachu versus Drake's Dragonite with Pikachu delivering a devastating Thunder attack to score the knockout blow. Victorious in the Orange League, Ash again returns to Pallet Town where he and Misty are reunited with Brock who leaves Professor Ivy for an unknown reason. Tracey decides to stay in Pallet Town to work with his idol, Professor Oak as Ash, Brock and Misty head west to the distant land of Johto. Ash is defeated by a pokémon trainer from the southern land of Hoenn region and decides to journey there next after a brief visit home. Before arriving in Pallet Town, Misty receives a message from her sisters requesting that she return to Cerulean City to take over gym leader duties. Brock then decides that he has been away from home too long and must return to help his father take care of his many brothers and sisters. In Pallet Town, Ash receives a more modern-looking outfit from his mother and sets out for the Hoenn region with only Pikachu, choosing to leave his other pokémon with Professor Oak. In Hoenn, Ash meets May and her younger brother Max, who join in his journey. May is excited by the Pokémon Contests that take place in Kanto and Hoenn, while Max joins the group to gain experience so that one day he will have his own Pokémon and become a Gym Leader like his father Norman, the Gym Leader of Petalburg City. Having solved his family issues, Brock returns to accompany Ash. Misty visits the group and takes Ash, Brock, May and Max to the Togepi Kingdom. After Ash completes the Hoenn League, he returns home to Pallet Town, as do May and Max return to Petalburg City, and Brock returns to Pewter City. Ash meets up with Misty, Tracey, Professor Oak and his mother at his homecoming celebration. Professor Birch and Max arrive in Pallet Town that same evening, and May and Brock arrive the next day. Ash and May learn of the Battle Frontier and the new contests in Kanto region and decide to travel together to compete. Brock, Max and Misty decide to join them on their new journey, however, Misty leaves the group again to return to looking after the gym. After Ash becomes champion of the Kanto Battle Frontier, May, Drew, Solidad, and Harley travel to the Johto region to participate in the Grand Festival held there. Max returns to Petalburg City to get ready for his own pokémon journey and Brock returns to Pewter City, once again. Ash learns of a new region called Sinnoh, where he embarks on a new journey. Ash planned to bring only Pikachu, but Aipom snuck on the boat. Brock comes back a few days later in Sinnoh and they both meet Dawn, a new trainer who hopes to become a great Pokémon Coordinator, like her mother. Ash is briefly rejoined by May during a visit to the Sinnoh region, where she decides to enter the Wallace Cup. After Ash completes the Sinnoh League, he returns home to Pallet Town, as Dawn returns to Twinleaf Town. Dawn decides to go on her new adventure in Hoenn, knowing that it was the region that Contests originated from and she was eager to hit the Contest trail again. Brock has returned to Pewter City in order to study to become a pokémon doctor. Ash learns of a new region called Unova, where he and his Pikachu travel with a girl by the name of Iris and Cilan, the Striaton City Gym Leader. Ash is briefly rejoined by Dawn during a visit to the Unova region, where she decides to enter the Pokémon World Tournament Junior Cup. List of seasons "Season One" is Episodes 1 - 80 because those episodes all use the "Pokémon Theme" opening. The extra music videos tacked to the end of Season One episodes is the five part "Pokérap," a music video created to help kids remember the names of 150 Pokémon that were publicly acknowledged at the time. "Season Two" is Episodes 81-116 because they use "Pokémon World." The extra music video tacked to the end of Season Two episodes is the "Pikachu's Jukebox," a collection of AMVs set to songs from 4Kids' "2BA Master" CD. "Season Three" is the 41 episodes that use "Pokémon Johto" as their opening. Season Three's set of post-episode music videos is the "Pokémon Karaokemon," a set of new music videos using mostly Johto Journeys footage set to songs from 4Kids' "Totally Pokémon!" CD. Trivia The companies that produce the Japanese, English, Italian, Chinese, and Korean versions of the Pokémon TV series create their own original opening theme songs, while all the other international dubs use translated versions of the English opening theme songs. Italy is one of the few Western European countries that does not have original names for any pokémon. The producers of the English dub follow the original story very closely and only change their version of the script by completely inserting some kid-friendly American pop humor into it to create their own canon that's separate from the Japanese version, due to and because of the fact that in the latter, not only do the characters say mild swear words when they are really angry, but to re-write untranslatable visual puns that only make sense in Japanese. However, in the case of "Pokémon: The First Movie", it was virtually re-imagined it for American audiences by using creative aspects to Americanize the movie by dramatically re-writing the film script and incorporating all-new story elements, then dubbing the new script over the footage. This means that the English-dubbed version of Mewtwo was clearly portrayed as a cold, heartless, and maliciously evil villain, who is a maniacally genocidal psychopath wanting to kill everyone. Mewtwo's counterpart, Mew, is a messianic hero who defends Ash and his friends and their pokémon from Mewtwo's evil and saves them with an anti-violence message about how real strength comes from the heart. While, in the Japanese version, Mewtwo is a morally ambiguous and confused creature in the middle of an existential crisis, and struggles to find meaning to its existence. And Mew declares that all unnatural life found in Mewtwo's lab-created and genetically-modified fully-grown clones that are identical to a normal pokémon of their species with multiple horizontal marks on their bodies, should perish because they are inferior to the naturally-born originals. The Japanese credits list each voice actor as well as the character he or she portrays, while the American credits just list the actors without telling who did which voice. In the Japanese version of the episode "Beauty And The Beach", there was an adult-natured scene of James wanting to humiliate Misty in a swimsuit competition for women, so he wears a revealing body suit with pair of giant inflatable fake breasts underneath a skimpy bikini swimsuit and showing them off by giving them an enlargement of ridiculous proportions that is over twice their original size and then he moves his bouncing chest up and down in front of the little girl. The English-language version of the episode was as a "never been heard and never been seen lost episode" special presentation, with all the scenes of James in the bikini completely removed. The reason for the change in the show's name in America is because the Japanese title closely resembles another series, Monster In My Pocket. Category:TV Shows Category:Pokemon